Reality is my Nightmare
by Overlord of Sarcasm
Summary: What if it wasn't Peter who was turned to ash, but Tony instead? Basically, A4 hasn't even come out yet and I'm already trying to fix it. Featuring flashbacks, Tony is a God, some character death, and much more! Whumpy enough to highlight Parker Luck, but not be pathetic. Inspired by various headcannons found across tumblr/pinterest. Cross-posted on AO3
1. Titan

I look around me. They're disintegrating, turning to ash. I can feel my spidey sense going off, warning me of something, and I fear that I am next. "Mr. Stark?" I mumble. I don't think he hears me. "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good." 

He looks around. If I didn't know better, I would say that he looked almost lost. "You're alright." He watches as the people around him blow away in the wind. 

I stumble towards him. He's a genius, one of the smartest people on earth. He can fix this, he can save me. He doesn't have much of a reaction, and I begin to panic. "I don't know what's happening! I don't wanna go." I crash into him, trying to hug him, but shaking in fear. "Please… I don't wanna go!" We fall to the ground, my spidey sense is going crazy, and it's only making the panic worse. I look at his torso, wondering if I could try to web up the wound from the sword before I am whisked away from the closest thing I have to a father figure.

I expect blood, maybe some intestines to be spilling out, if he was stabbed in the wrong place. Worst case scenario, I think maybe I can see shattered pieces of his rib cage. 

What I see is so much worse than I could have possibly imagined.

There's dust, blowing all around us. This, I knew - I expected to happen. But it's coming from the wrong place. I thought it would be me. It had to be me! He could fix things, he could save the world.

I flip us, so he is lying on the ground, one of my hands on his shoulder, the other frantically using my web shooters to try to seal his stomach, but I know that it's useless. I can feel his flesh dissolving under my hand, and refocus my attention on his face. We lock eyes, and I try to communicate everything I need to in the last few seconds I have with my mentor. I can see the fear in his eyes, the sorrow, but also, something that looks almost like relief? I try to say everything I wish I could have said to Uncle Ben before he died, but all that comes out is "I'm sorry…" 

He smiles weakly, blinks, and opens his mouth as if he's about to say something, then he's gone.

I scrape at the ash, as if trying to gather enough to put him back together. I try to catch it all, before the wind has a chance to blow him away, but I have no way to hold all of it. 

I have no idea how long I sit there, trying to come to terms with what has happened. I know I need to get up, but I can't bring myself to leave his remains behind. "Karen, what's the longest lasting web fluid I have?" She takes a few seconds longer than usual, and for a moment, I fear that whatever that was, whatever Thanos had done, had been able to wipe out the AI as well.

"You have the Long Term Handcuff option, designed to hold until you manually desolve it with it's solvent." 

I blink. "That wasn't in my crash course in D.C., was it?" 

"No, it is a new web combination. The suit you are currently wearing has over two hundred new combinations for you to try." 

I struggle to hold back my tears. "Ok, uh, Karen? Activate Long Term Handcuff web." I proceed to make a small… pouch, although I am tempted to call it my web sac. I scrape as much of the ashes into it as possible, before sealing it off and stringing it around my neck on a seperate web.

I stand, tucking the sac into my suit as I do so. I take one last, lingering look at the place that will surely haunt my nightmares, then turn to walk away. Immediately, I nearly run into something. I'm not sure how long she had been standing there, watching me, but my spidey senses hadn't warned me about her, so I assume that she was not an immediate danger to me. Still, I jump back in surprise, careful to avoid… "What? Why…. Who are you? I know we sorta met earlier, but not really, and, like, I don't think I remember your name, and I'm really sorry, but like I think we're the only two left here, and I might be Spiderman, but I'm just a kid, and I don't know what to do. How am I gonna get home from here…. Sorry, I'm rambling, I'll shut up now."

The blue lady looked at me, cocking her head slightly, in a calculating way. "I am called Nebula." She offers no more information.

"Ok, uh, Ms. Nebula, ma'am? Do you have a ship? How did you get here? How are we going to get off this planet? Oh, and I'm - you can call me Peter."

"Peter, huh?" There was no emotion on her face. "You literally watched me crash land my ship, I fail to see how you thought my ship would be of any use in this scenario."

I hang my head. "Sorry, miss. I just - I just really need to get home. I ne- no, WE need to figure this out, try to I dunno, reverse it or something? Half the people in the universe just died, surely there's a way to fix this! There has to be something we can do!" I look around desperately, as if expecting someone else to pop out of the shadows to save the day.

She says nothing for a few more moments, before sighing and gesturing to me to follow her. I stagger forward. "We need to find Quill's ship. He may have come here expecting to die, but he loved that shithole. He wouldn't have destroyed it unless he didn't have a choice. Come, it most likely isn't far." She doesn't spare me a second glance, assuming that I will follow her.

I stumble forward, I have nowhere else to go. Soon enough, we find the ship. Climbing on, Nebula starts the engines, while I sit in one of the seats. "Do you know how far we are from Earth? We are going there, right? You're gonna let me go home?"

She glances back at me briefly. "It will take a few days to get to our destination. Sit back, go to sleep. You would be more of a hindrance than a help if you attempt to fly. I will wake you if something goes wrong." Her body is stiff, I can tell she is not used to showing her emotions to many people. "We will go to Terra, we will see if any of those who are left will be of any help to us."

I doubt that I will be able to sleep, but close my eyes anyways.


	2. Meanwhile

Most people associate the color yellow with happiness. For those stuck here, in this murky, dusty place, the color yellow means something very different. Thankfully, it is not a bright yellow space; it's more of an burnt orange mixed with old, rundown shell gas station yellow, not a color often found. Which almost made it even worse. There was nothing to remind them of home. If you focused carefully, you could filter out sounds, to converse with just one or two people. It was confusing, nothing was solid in the soul stone. You could hear clearly, but sight was another matter altogether. Everything was seen through a dense haze, making it hard to see details.

But it was loud. Half of the galaxy's population had appeared here, and there were thousands of languages being spoken, yelled, even, across the space. These people had watched as their friends, family, and even they themselves dissolved into ashes, only to reappear here moments later. So yes, people were panicking, and rightfully so.

Tony opened his eyes, looking around. There were no recognizable landmarks, everything seemed to be the same, just a smoky, dull orange and yellow haze. Time seemed to move differently around him. At some points, it sounded as if everyone was talking at a super speed, the next, it was as if everyone around him was moving through molasses. He had no idea how long he lay there, thoroughly disoriented, trying to wait for the sensations to pass.

"Tony?!"

* * *

May Parker had still been at work when she got the call from Peter's school . All she had been told was that he had gone missing from the bus WHILE IT WAS SPEEDING DOWN THE HIGHWAY (seriously, how did no one see him leave?) via a panicked call from the teacher supervising the trip, who had decided to alert her before the cops were called. They had hoped that perhaps they had been wrong when they thought they saw him enter the bus, or maybe something had come up that had forced her to pick him up She had no idea where he was, but had made up a story on the spot. She had texted several people frantically, hoping that one of them would know where he was. Ned was next to no help, only telling her that he had jumped from the moving bus - Was he trying to give her a heart attack? - while on the trip. She hadn't heard back from Happy yet, and she didn't even have Tony Stark's number, so she couldn't try him. She should really fx that, now that she's thinking about it.

Pepper, on the other hand. Pepper was a life saver. They had met by chance, when May had been having a mental breakdown on the side of the road on the way to the Compound to pick Peter up from his training session. Happy, driving Pepper, had recognized her car and pulled over without even asking Pepper for permission, to see if she needed help. While the pair hadn't been expecting the tears, the sobbed questions (How do you live a normal life, knowing someone you love is risking theirs?), Happy had been more than willing to back off and allow Pepper to help the terrified aunt to calm down. The two had bonded over the shared experiences, and while they didn't talk often, they both understood that the other was alway available for questions, help, or a rant about their respective boys.

Pepper had responded quickly, given the circumstances surrounding the events, and while it did nothing to ease her fears - if anything, it made them worse - she was able to relax a little, knowing that Peter very well might just still be a bit busy helping Iron Man with the spaceship. After the first few messages, trying to explain exactly what was going on, May was only more lost than before. A wizard? Aliens, again?! And her boy, her kid was dressed in little more than a onesie. A high tech, multimillion dollar onesie, but still.

She was nowhere near the fight, but people are stupid. They think that they are invincible, that nothing could possibly come close to even touching them, and they will stay and record things that they have no business being part of. However, due to this, May was able to watch the majority of the fight between the beings. She was able to see every hit Peter took, every time he failed to dodge one of those massive fists - and when he was dragged up into the spaceship. She supposed she should panic, but honestly, she felt numb. She knew this was a dangerous job, knew that even if she had told him to stop, he wouldn't listen. So she had allowed him to continue running around the streets trying to 'look out for the little guy'.

Of course, there had been talk of curfew, he always had to have his homework completed before going out, reporting any major injuries, no more skipping school unless it was literally life or death for someone. For the most part, he had done well. There had only been a few incidents where he had skipped, and all of those were able to be explained off as either the Stark Internship or being sick.

While he helped out with the occasional fire, and sometimes assisted the police with hostage situations or preventing car accidents, the major catastrophes - like with the ferry or the Vulture - were few and far between. So when she saw this, the first potential worldwide disaster he had been involved in since discovering that it was her teenage nephew under the mask, she was numb. She could barely concentrate on anything, could barely focus enough to make it to the couch to try to gather her thoughts.

* * *

As CEO, Pepper was used to dealing with the PR nightmare that was her fiance. Nearly every time something involving him happened, whether it affected the company or not, the stocks were affected as well. As such, one she had informed May Parker of what was happening regarding their boys, she had headed to her office, sat at her desk, and opened the emails. Thankfully, for the first few hours, people were in too much shock to really do anything, so there hadn't been any consequences as of yet. However, once nightfall hit, the emails, Twitter bashing, even a few people on Instagram, had all started with the theories and complaints. She saved Instagram and Twitter for last, knowing that the emails from HR were of higher priority. Unfortunately, she had only been able to get through little more than half of the emails before she found she was unable to type any longer.

Looking down, first all she felt was confusion. Then, fear. Within seconds, all that was left of her was a small pile of ashes.

A/N: Please leave a comment, I wanna know what y'all think!


	3. Oh hey there, Mr Captain America Sir

The trip passes in a blur. I am only able to sleep for a few hours at a time, and I have several nightmares. Nebula sleeps while I am awake, and I am under orders to awaken her if I notice the ship beginning to veer off of the set course. When both of us are awake, neither of us speak unless necessary. I learned after the first day that if she didn't want to tell you something, and you tried to force her, bad things would happen. I had gotten her to tell me a little bit about how she knew Thanos, but she had clammed up after only the basics.

It took fifty-two hours, but we were finally back on Earth, or Terra, as Nebula insisted on calling it. We are in orbit around the planet, so we can identify ourselves as non-hostile after the catastrophe a few days ago, and I am apprehensive, to say the least. Who will be left? Am I alone? Will I still have Aunt May, did she even survive the snap?

Radio static interrupts my train of thought. "-iy yourself. Spacecraft in orbit around earth, come in. Identify yourself. Spacecraft in orbit around earth, come in." Nebula grabs at the radio.

"This is Nebula, currently captaining the craft 'the Milano', formerly captained by one Peter Quill, formerly of Earth. Non-hostile, will provide video messaging to confirm. One citizen of Earth currently on board. Requesting permission to enter the atmosphere."

There is radio silence for nearly thirty minutes, before a raspy voice cuts in. "Finally got this freakin' thing to work, and you guys are trying to take it from me? I don't think so. Build your own if you're so desperate. Earth to Milano, this is Rocket. Where's the rest of my team? Is Peter on board that ship? Did you guys find Gamora?" There is more scuffling noises in the background.

Nebula glances at me, hesitating for a moment before she answers. "I have Peter here. Requesting permission to land? We need medical to check him over."

A few minutes later, a strangely familiar voice comes through the radio system. "This is Steve Rogers speaking, permission granted to land in the country of Wakanda. Coordinates being sent to your ship. We expect your arrival in the next hour and a half."

"I understand. Receiving and inputting coordinates now. Estimated arrival is forty-five Terra minutes to one hour." She turns the radio off without waiting for a response. "Look, kid. This might be a rough ride, I don't know if the landing gear was damaged or not, so you better strap in."

I nod, then strap into the co-pilots seat. Looking at the seat belt, I question its integrity, so I use my webs to reinforce them a little bit. I try not to think about the last time I had to use my web shooters. Nebula begins the descent into Earth's atmosphere, and, as she said it would be, it's a rough ride. I lose consciousness for a moment, and come to with her smirking in my face.

"Gah!" I try to jump backwards, but am held in place by the new and temporarily improved seat belt. Nebula laughs, and it is the first time I have heard her do so. It almost makes her seem more human.

"We will be arriving in a few minutes, and we'll need to get you checked by medical. They have told me that it is going to appear that we will crash land into a mountain, but that it is only an illusion. So do not panic. After that, we will be landing in a field, where we will be met by the leaders of Wakanda, as well as a group that calls themselves the Avengers, and a talking fox and tree, they never go anywhere without the other. Any questions?"

"Uhhh, yes? Talking tree and talking tree? Wait! Crash land? What? Are we sure this isn't a trap?"

She looks at me over her shoulder, and we make eye contact. "No." With that, she points the ship towards the ground and accelerates.

I'd like to say that I keep my cool and don't scream, but that is a lie. I'm terrified, and to my horror, I can hear faint laughter coming from the other end of the radio. 'Well,' I think, 'at least I can bring joy to these strangers - who are apparently trying to get me killed! - in these troubling times.' After several seconds without colliding into the ground, I risk opening my eyes to take a peek, just in time to see it rushing up to meet us. I don't have time to close my eyes again before we go through the illusion.

Ahead of me, I see a beautiful city. It has high skyscrapers, and it looks like a scene straight from a movie set in the future. And in between us and the city, the ground appears to have seen recent battle. Parts of it are still smoking, despite Thanos having left almost three days ago. Despite all this, however, the sight is still breathtaking to behold.

We are only in the air for a few more minutes, then we land. There are several people there to meet us, including several of the original Avengers and multiple spear-wielding Wakandan warriors, along with a regal, but mournful young woman. She is probably around my age.

Stepping forward, she begins to speak. "I am Queen Shuri of Wakanda, state your business here. If you plan to attack, know that you will fail. This planet has suffered great loss, and we will not stand for any more than is necessary. Attempts at attacking us will be met with your failure and your return to space - without your ship."

I look at her, fidgeting slightly, trying to decide what to say. Unfortunately, the only thing I can come up with doesn't really fit the situation, so I try to hold my tongue. "So, just… YEET? Just like that?" I failed.

She looked at me with a grin. "Colonizer, I am so glad you said that. Now, I am certain you are from Earth. Forgive me for being harsh, I wish we had met under better circumstances. We have all lost many important people, and we are trying, but it is difficult to bounce back from something like this. I lost my brother - our king, and we have lost many of our warriors."

Nebula moves from standing awkwardly to the side. "This is great and all, but we need to fix this. There must be a way to fix this. We can't-" She cuts off. "The entire galaxy has just been culled by fifty percent. We need to rest up, figure out where he is, and learn how to reverse this."

The Avengers look up, hope on their faces for the first time in a long while. "Is that even possible? To reverse this? It's so much death and destruction, think of the time lines, and the, the paradoxes that could create! Would it really be safe to try to undo this? Are we even able to?"

I begin talking. "Mr. Ban - Dr. Banner, sir." I stand up a little straighter, squaring my shoulders. "Do you truly think it is the wisest choice to do that? Not only to leave possibly hundreds of billions of people dead, but also to leave that much power in the hands of someone who doesn't hesitate to have that much death on their hands? Don't think of the science, think of the people. I think science has long since left this conversation. " I shake my head. "No. If you guys won't help me, I'll figure it out myself." I look down, thinking of Uncle Ben. "I was once told that if I had the power to stop something bad from happening, and I didn't, then it would be on me. And you know what? We do have the power to fix this. You guys are the Avengers! That doesn't necessarily mean you guys stop a threat. That word means you make the other guy pay."

I look each of them in the eye. "I have looked up to each of you, for different reasons, since I was a child. Every kid wanted to be like you. Don't let them down now."

Shuri nodded. "We have the tech, and we have time on our side. It is unlikely that he will expect us to come after him, so we most likely also have surprise as well. For now, however, we must rest. Get you," she gestures at me "checked over in my lab, and we will di-" She is cut off by a raspy scream.

"You told me you had Peter! Where is he? Where is my team? That's Peter's ship, where is he? You said you had-" His voice breaks, but he launches himself at Nebula.

"I am sorry, but you were the only one who responded. We needed to figure out where to go to fix this, and you enjoy fighting to much. Once I heard you, I knew you would be in the thick of it. And I didn't lie - his name is Peter." There is no sympathy in her voice.

"I'm all alone now. I'm the last one left."

 **A/N:** I know, I know, that was terrible of me to do to Rocket. Sorry? (I'll fix it I promise) ( Eventually)

Anyways, I would love comments telling me what you thought, even if it's just y'all saying that I'm evil.

Next chapter will probably feature a bit of May, Pepper, Tony, possible Bucky, and have a bit more of what's happening in the soul stone


	4. Aftershock

Yesterday, billions of people, all around the world, had died. Turned to dust, and blown away in the wind. Yesterday, millions of other people were killed in the disasters that resulted from the sudden lack of control of vehicles. Yesterday, dozens of airplanes had crash landed - some into empty fields, some into the middle of city centers, some into neighborhoods, and some into schools. Yesterday, millions of cars, suddenly missing their drivers, had caused car accidents and killed people. Yesterday, the world had lost half of the police force, half of the medical personnel, half of the first responders. Yesterday, billions had been killed by Thanos, but millions more had been killed as a result of the disasters that followed.

Millions had ended up in hospitals and clinics, most in critical conditions, and only a fraction of the population had escaped unscathed - physically, that is. Everyone knew dozens of people who had died.

Children were left without parents, and people were left in a panic. Crime rates had gone up almost instantly, those who had survived that had been preppers had hunkered down to defend what they claimed as their own, and there were already massive turf wars between gangs all across the globe.

Ten years ago, when May first took in Peter, she could barely imagine herself as a parent. She and Ben had decided that they weren't ready for kids, and so, they would wait. They had planned on maybe one or two, once they had paid off student loans and were better set financially. Of course, things can never go as planned.

When Mary and Richard had died, there was some debate over what to do with Peter. They never told him, but there was definitely a week or two where they had seriously considered putting him in foster care. They weren't ready for kids! But then, one day, they had woken up and seen Peter curled up on their bed with them, holding one of his blankets, and they had known that they couldn't give the sweet boy up.

A few years later, when Ben had died, she and Peter were suddenly all the other had. Peter had a hard time, he had seen it happen, had held Ben while he died, and May had lost her husband. She wasn't sure how, but somehow, they made it through together.

Then, of course, Peter was Spider-Man. Cause of course, _of course_ he was. Her sweet boy, instead of running around showing off for the heck of it as soon as he realized he had powers, had started helping people. Oh how she hated Tony Stark for encouraging him, at first. Then she remembered how he had seen Flash targeting another kid, and had drawn the attention in on himself, back in second grade. When he was eight, and just getting over the loss of his parents, and they had taken him to the Stark Expo, to try to distract him, as a reward for getting such good grades. And of course, the little brat had thrown on his Iron Man mask and his toy repulsors and had run off to try to take on the death robot himself. And she broke off, mid rant, she had stopped yelling at him, stopped screaming in his face, and lurched forward and hugged the startled billionaire, thanking him.

It had been only a few months since then, and she was still struggling to be okay with the fact that her boy was risking his life so often. Pepper - God bless her - had been very helpful in learning to deal with it, and deep down, she had known already. Not exactly what was happening, but she has known that something big was going on.

And now, with the world falling apart - people literally falling apart - all around her, May just sighed, called Happy again, and started trying to pick up the pieces of what had once been her life. While this was still strange, after everything else that had happened to her, she really shouldn't have been all that surprised that there was another world wide disaster already.

It was three days before anyone finally knew what was going on. Three days of panic, three days of frantically overloading cell phone towers by trying to call relatives, and three days of speculating. It was three days before the broadcast was finally sent out, coming from Wakanda.

In the background, there were heros and warriors. Captain America could be seen, and next to him, the Black Widow and Hawkeye. The man who turned into the Hulk was off to one side (hadn't he disappeared?), and War Machine, with his suit standing sentry behind him. Thor stood, arms folded, a large ax at his belt. On his left, a racoon? Holding a machine gun? A lady with blue and purple skin stood off to the left, obviously uncomfortable with the situation, and there were several Wakandan warriors surrounding the group.

However, this wasn't what captured May's attention. No, it was the familiar blue and red spandex suit that she had grown to both love and hate. Her baby boy, standing there, in his suit, alive. The princess of Wakanda began speaking.

" _This is an urgent announcement regarding what has happened these past few days. Our technology is translating into all the languages of the earth as I speak. I have personally hacked into satellites and cell phone towers, as well as all major news and radio networks so we can broadcast this."_

" _Ladies and gentlemen. Something terrible has happened to our Earth. Four days ago, three superheroes from New York battled against an alien, and when one of them was kidnapped, the other two followed without hesitation in an attempt to rescue him. After learning about the aliens leader's plans to gather powerful artifacts to destroy half of all life in the galaxy, the three decided to attempt to ambush him using his own ship, which had already been set on autopilot. There they met up with a group of aliens also intent on destroying this alien - Thanos - and they teamed up. They fought valiantly, and New York's own Iron Man and Spider-Man, as well as the five others involved - Doctor Strange, Nebula, Peter Quill, Mantis, and Drax. They were nearly successful, and would have won if they had had just one or two more fighting with them. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and in the end, they did not succeed."_

" _Meanwhile, Thanos had an army here on earth, in our very own Wakanda. What you see behind me is the majority of what is left with our forces. The rest are helping with our cleanup efforts, as we had a major battle here only days ago. Plans are being set in motion to defeat Thanos, and we hope that we will be able to bring back those who have been turned to dust. We all have family and friends who died, and we all would like nothing more than to be able to revive them. In this dire time, we ask that you band together, protect each other. The war against Thanos has only just begun, and we should not be fighting amongst ourselves at the same time."_

 _At this, Spider-Man steps forwards, looking at Shuri. "This was not planned, forgive me, your majesty for being so forward." He turns towards the camera. "Everyone who is of earth is only human. We are all doing our best, but we need to do more. There are going to be thousands of orphans, and how many of those kids will be too young to fend for themselves? How many will be traumatized? I held the closest thing I had to a father in my arms as he turned to dust, how many children will be able to sleep or eat after that? I can only function right now because I have to. How many of the children will even have access to food right now? We can't let the children starve. Please," his voice breaks. "check in with your local law enforcements, or childcare agencies. We need to look out for the little guys before something worse happens to them."_

 _Captain America is standing behind him, one eyebrow raised. Then he steps forward, taking charge without another glance to the vigilante or the princess. "The kid is right. Find the children. This is going to be hard, but if we are to be successful in reviving everyone, we need to be able to reconnect everyone as well. Save the children, and identify them as quickly as possible. Mark them, write their address, their name, the license plate of the car you pulled them from - anything. Anything you can think of to identify them in the time to come, write it down. Keep it connected to them. Use permanent markers, or even tattoo them if you must. I say this to every citizen, everywhere: protect those who we cannot. We will get the people back, but you must protect those who were not lost." He steps back with a nod._

 _Shuri nods in acknowledgment. "Thank you, Spider-Man, Captain. We do indeed need to do this. I will have one of our engineers look into a way of compiling a database, of sorts, to assist. For now, we must go to the labs to find a way to track Thanos. Thank you, and stay safe." The broadcast cuts off, leaving all of the screens black for a moment before they filled with color once again._

May looks guiltily to her left, sitting next to her on the couch is Happy. They had both gone upstate to the compound in hopes of finding answers once it was clear that the world around was them well and truly going to hell. Neither had left since the first day, and now that it was clear what was happening, as much as they both hated it, they knew that something now needed to be done.

A/N: Please leave a review, they literally give me life! Also, don't hate me? Please and thanks


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